Email vs Fax: A Comparison That Should Be Obsolete (But Isn’t) Comparison

Thanks to the advancement of cloud-based technology there are plenty of online fax services, all of which provide many useful features, whether that be a fax manager that is designed to be simple and easy to use or the ability to schedule the sending of faxes. These are all things that RingCentral Fax and eFax, two leaders of the online faxing market are both capable of.

And so the real question is just how do these two compare – and, more importantly, differ – from one another? Does eFax, the self-proclaimed number one online fax service in the world, stand a chance against RingCentral, the VoIP and online faxing giant?

But if that’s the case, how come faxing – traditional and online alike – still exists? Maybe it’s best to rephrase this particular question: are there ways in which faxing in general prevails over email?

In the red corner: email

Strengths

One of the biggest reasons that email is the primary means of sending documents electronically is that it’s ridiculously fast, since messages can arrive at their destination in a fraction of a second no matter where the receiver is physically located. Aside from its speed, email is also when it comes to quality; the document attached to the email will appear exactly as it would in real life.

Another important aspect is the overall availability of email in general. Not only is having an email account free of charge – at least at the bigger email service providers such as Google and Yahoo – but emails can also be accessed from virtually anywhere, provided that you possess a device that is able to connect to the internet.

Weaknesses

Despite being such an important method of communication, email is not flawless. One of the biggest concerns is that emails are not encrypted, which makes them vulnerable to spam, attachments containing malware, hacking and phishing attempts… the list really could go. As a matter of fact, it’s due to these high risks that medical services don’t trust email for sending medical documents to this day, concerned that the sensitive data of patients might get intercepted.

But there’s more, since emails are never tracked by default so you can never be sure whether the message arrives to its destination or gets lost on the way there – perhaps due to being blocked for some reason. And to make things even more complicated, email has absolutely no legal binding at all.

In the blue corner: fax

Advantages

Although it’s widely considered to be a thing of the past, fax still holds its own due to its reliability and, most importantly, security. For starters, all faxes – even those sent from an encrypted online faxing manager – go through a Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) to be converted into phone signals, meaning that decoding an intercepted message is close to impossible.

Aside from that, faxes are traceable since it automatically sends out a confirmation of receipt to the sender. But if that’s not enough, then there is the fact that faxes rarely get blocked due to the direct connection between sender and receiver. And to make things even better, documents transmitted via this communication method are not only legally binding, but comply with HIPAA security laws as well.

Disadvantages

Regardless of its superior security when compared to that of email, fax is not without its problems, either. The biggest issue with fax is quality as documents are sent through phone wires so they can never look as good as the original copy. Another problem is that faxing in general is very sensitive, meaning that if just one thing goes wrong the transmission fails immediately.

And then there is the elephant in the room, the faxing machine itself: not only does it need constant maintenance to keep the service up and running, but there is nothing preventing others from snatching the printed document right from under your nose. And before you ask, yes, this is something that should be taken as a serious threat…

Sentenced to coexistence

Despite their respective strengths and weaknesses, it’s clear that neither emailing nor faxing will disappear anytime soon; as a matter of fact, they have both started to grow to work together thanks to the fact that they perfectly complement each other – which is especially true ever since the concept of faxing joined the ever-growing list of cloud-based services and became even safer and more reliable than before.

So, to end the continuous debate about whether to keep fax’s existing method or subscribe to such an online service, it’s clear that using either a free or paid faxing solution to transmit sensitive documents while making use of email for quick text-based messaging is the best option to further enhance business communications.